KUALA LUMPUR – In celebration of International Women’s Day 2022, Twitter brought back its Southeast Asia-wide #SheInspiresMe campaign, a day highlighting women’s roles and contributions in inspiring others in the communities. International Women’s Day aims to forge a gender-equal society as well as honour the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of the women who have stood up to break the bias and #OwnIt.
Now more than ever, women are using Twitter to drive conversations on important causes – including women’s rights, better access to resources, and social issues. #WomenOnTwitter contribute, shape and lead key moments on Twitter.
It is through these conversations that women find like-minded people with similar aspirations, goals, and inspirations to bond together to make an impact on the world today. From CEOs to digital artists, and from personal finance to women in the medical fields; below is a list of #IWD2022 Twitter Lists of inspiring women you may want to follow.
Alina Amir (@alinaamir) – Co-founder of Arus Academy
Graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and worked as an analyst with Accenture Management Consulting for a year, Alina decided to join the Teach For Malaysia (TFM) movement to end educational inequality. Alina was also selected to represent Malaysia at the 2014 World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar.
The whole experience at TFM has made her realise that more needs to be done beyond the two-year Fellowship to be able to truly solve education inequality. She and three other TFM Alumni started up Arus Academy in hopes of being part of the bigger solution to inspire and motivate students to love learning and apply it to their everyday life.
Arus Academy offers a curriculum that revolves around the Maker Education philosophy, computing and STEM to underprivileged students. Through Arus Academy, students are introduced to coding, programming and building physical solutions to everyday real-world issues.
Alina expressed her love of using Twitter as her favourite professional development platform and getting inspired by educators from all over the world. She also shared one of the challenges she faced as a woman representative in a professional workspace.
“We grew up in a culture where women are expected to be submissive, passive and quiet. Especially in a job where most top leaders are male, I try to be conscious of why I feel a certain way at work, or the source of my fears to speak up about my work and find out if it has roots in our cultural norms”.
Boo Su Lyn (@boosulyn) – Editor-in-chief at CodeBlue
CodeBlue news site editor-in-chief Boo Su-Lyn is a living definition of women in power. Addressing sexual assaults, ethical misconduct, and health care issues have become her mission in life.
Boo often speaks up on these matters on Twitter and to her belief, Twitter is a great platform for subject matter experts to communicate complex information – especially in health, science, and medicine – in simple and understandable language to the general public.
In her mission of making complex news more understandable to all Malaysians, Boo utilises her Twitter as an advocacy tool to put an abstract government Bill on infectious disease control in a real-life context.
This way, Malaysians can simply understand the impact and injustice of proposed harsher penalties for Covid-19 offences. Recently, she just started Ova, a women’s health news site to address issues concerning women’s health as well as other areas like the workplace, women’s rights in sex, marriage, and divorce.
“Both men and women need to stop perpetuating gender stereotypes and recognise systemic gender discrimination and heavier burdens on women – for example, working women shoulder greater child-raising and domestic responsibilities. Men need to be supportive partners to help women achieve their goals.”
Dr Amalina Che Bakri (@dramalinabakri) – General surgeon, National Health Service UK
Malaysians are no strangers to Dr Amalina, a young girl who once shocked every household in 2004 when she broke the record for the number of A1s achieved by a student in the history of Malaysian education.
Now a Clinical Research Fellow at Imperial College London, Dr Amalina is known for her passion for advocating for women’s rights. Using Twitter as her medium, she creates content to empower women to follow their dreams and break the bias as well as sharing health and medical tips. She believes that supporting and helping other girls and women to reach their full potential is the essence of female empowerment. She also shared an interesting story about gender stereotypes.
“In an emergency operation, I once operated on an elderly man. The next day, I went to see him and introduced myself as the surgeon for the case, explaining what we found and how the operation went. I was there with one of my junior doctor colleagues, who was a very tall white man, holding the patient’s notes and I was in my scrubs. After I spoke to the patient for about 10 minutes, the patient then said to my colleague, 'So, were you the surgeon?' ignoring what I told him for the last 10 minutes. He then realised that he made a mistake and apologised.”
Ivy Josiah (@ivyjosiah) – Women’s rights activist
Ivy Josiah is an activist who is vital in the formation of the Women’s Aid Organisation, a Malaysian NGO that provides help to women who are escaping from domestic violence. Currently, Ivy teamed up with four women’s organisations to spearhead Malaysia’s first Women Tribunal.
The tribunal's mission is to provide an alternative form of justice as well as advocacy for women's rights and gender equality in the country. This effort will amplify the voice of women affected by gender discrimination and offer assistance to make impactful changes.
“Empowerment is both personal and political, you not only empower yourself, but you empower and work with other women.”
Moon (@mumu_thestan) – NFT artist
Mumu the stan, also known as Munira Hamzah (Moon) is a homegrown visual artist and poet who started creating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a full-time job. NFTs are digital assets that represent ownership of digital items such as artworks and collectables.
Thanks to NFTs, artists and collectors can become the immutable owners of digital arts and other unique digital assets and make money from them. How Moon joined NFT space is a memorable tale worth telling.
Due to the pandemic and lockdown; her favourite artist, Linkin Park’s singer and rapper Mike Shinoda (@mikeshinoda) began streaming on Twitch (a video-streaming platform), a community he created to connect with his fans by discussing topics on art and music.
Mike Shinoda noticed her artwork and bought her first NFT, who then encouraged her to pursue NFTs for a living. Moon’s artworks have been part of an art exhibition exhibit at Art Basel, Miami in 2021. NFTs have allowed Moon to sell digital art and keep a significant portion of the sales profits.
She also receives royalties from the resale of her artworks. Moon believes that due to NFTs' decentralisation system, it has become an empowering tool that helps artists from all walks of life to reach a global audience and at the same time reward its value back to the creators.
“As a mother, people expect a woman to go to work like they have no family but take care of their family as if they don't have another job.
"These expectations weigh us down, affect our mental health. Women should be allowed to have flaws, and to have their own hopes and dreams. To not work for other people's expectations. Instead, really work for yourself. Think about what you want to achieve. Be your own best friend. Think of yourself when you were younger, what expectations did you have for yourself?”
Nadiah Wan (@lapetitemaligne) – Chief executive officer, Thomson Hospital
A woman with many hats, Nadiah Wan is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara and the group chief executive officer of TMC Life Sciences Bhd. She is also director of the Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia (ICDM) and a mentor with the global nonprofit organisation Endeavour.
Nadiah has been utilising her Twitter more to help improve health communications in Malaysia. As someone from the healthcare industry, Nadiah shares her views on what’s happening about the government’s efforts to combat covid. Nadiah believes that breaking the bias should start from the point where everyone deserves the chance to be the best version of themselves.
“It’s really about choice and that really comes from first understanding what it is you want for yourself. Not all women want children and some women would rather focus on their family rather than their career. But how many women are confident enough to insist that this is what they want? The question I ask myself often is if I continue in my current trajectory, what kind of life would I have and is that the life that I want?”
Nalini Elumalai (@nalinielumalai) – Human Rights Activist
Nalini Elumalai is a human rights and grassroots activist with 15 years of experience. Currently, she is the senior Malaysia programme officer at Article 19, an international NGO working on freedom of expression.
Before joining Article 19, she held an eight-year tenure with human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO), Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram), as a right to trial campaign coordinator, secretary of Anti ISA Movement (AIM), and then steering the organisation forward as executive director.
“We have to open our minds and free ourselves from society's norms against women. Be yourself and live your life without any regrets or hesitation. It is okay to break away from the chain put on women for many generations.”
Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror) – Personal finance expert
A writer, a speaker, and a digital marketer, Suraya is also the founder of the popular personal finance website, RinggitOhRinggit.com. Suraya is also the curator of the book series entitled Money Stories from Malaysians.
Suraya has done much to popularise personal finance in Malaysia sharing her tips and advice on spending, saving and investing. She offers lots of tips for living a frugal lifestyle and is transparent about her income and finances which has garnered her a huge following.
An interesting insight that Suraya shared with us when asked about what female empowerment personally means to her is, “To me, female empowerment means women’s valuable care work for the family, community and society, much of which are currently unpaid which sets them back economically and politically.
"It’s less about ‘equipping her with the skill sets to make it in a man’s world’, but more about acknowledging the labour that she is providing for free is already valuable and deserves financial compensation.” Suraya left a piece of advice to all the younger generations of women to ponder.
“Understand that as much as you may think you are for women’s rights and equality, you probably have some hidden biases against women as well.
"Maybe you want her to be likeable as well as skilled when men just have to be skilled. Maybe you confuse overconfidence with competence and didn’t know that women tend to rate themselves lower than men, even though their work is objectively better. Just keep discovering your own biases.
"I would also advise young women to read as much as possible. Reading is probably the best life hack there is. If there’s something you want to learn, read a book. If you can’t, then read an article. If you can’t, then read tweets.”
All of us have our own female role models and the people we look up to. With Twitter Lists, you can stay updated on their inspiring activities and conversations. You can also share your version of inspiring women's Twitter Lists to inspire and encourage others in your communities.
Go to the navigation bar in your Twitter app and tap List in your profile icon menu. Once you have created a List, add a short description and simply start adding people to it.
#SheInspiresMe is a campaign that everyone can participate in by sharing their inspirations to others during this #IWD2022 celebration month. Be sure to follow Twitter’s #IWD2022 List to connect with women who are committed to uplifting others and #OwnIt.
If you would like to motivate and show your support, go ahead and create your own Twitter Lists, too. Let’s celebrate the inspiring women's voices on Twitter together. – The Vibes, March 12, 2022
